AFTERMATH [ 2 ] | LEGACIES

F I F T E E N

I woke up to the sound of jazz music playing. I looked around. The scenery was familiar, but way too out of date. It was Chicago, but not modern Chicago.

I remembered the spell the twins were chanting. Something about it was familiar, as well, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It must've been some spell to put me in a dream because I was most definitely in the Roaring 20's, in a Chicago speakeasy. It was the one from the picture Roman had when she discovered I had connections to the Mikaelsons when I was still going by Lilah Desmarais.

"Why would dreamland send me here?" I asked, looking around. 

There were no humans, which was no fun. 

"How could I go full on ripper-mode with no humans around?" I wondered out loud.

"Lilah."

A shiver went down my back at the voice. I turned around, and there he was, hero hair and all. He was dressed in clothes from this time period, and I looked down to see I looked like a flapper. I laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Even in the 20's, I never dressed like a flapper.

"Stefan Salvatore," I said, smiling. "Now I'm really wondering why dreamland sent me here."

I walked closer to him, both of us leaning against the counter as we stared at each other with familiar smiles.

"You look good," he said. "Not a day over a thousand."

"And you look exactly how I left you," I said. "Dreams really do dig up the past sometimes, don't they?"

"This isn't a dream, Lilah," he said, shaking his head. "This setting, this is just because this is where you needed to be, but we can change it to anything. New Orleans, Mystic Falls, any time period, the village you were born."

Every time he said a new place, our clothes and where we were changed.

"Go back to Chicago," I said, and the setting took us right back to where we were.

"If this is no dream, what is it? I doubt Mommy dearest would've given a spell to kill her daughter," I said with a bitter laugh. "Though, she hasn't been much of a mother for a thousand years."

"You know that wasn't her fault," Stefan said, and I glared at him for it. "But if you must know, I am dead. I was living in the afterlife at peace, but I was called here because an old friend needed some guiding. That's what the spell was. To send you guidance."

"So, a ghost is going to tell me everything I need to know about living?" I asked, another bitter laugh. "That's gold."

"You weren't this cold the last time I saw you," Stefan said. "Then again, you also erased my memories of us. I died, and they call came back. I wondered for a while if I would've ever gotten over you if I got to keep my memories."

"You would've," I said. "You would've met Elena and then Caroline. I would've been a thing of the past."

"Would you?" he asked. "I came to New Orleans once, when Hope was still a baby, and I went on a little trip with Hayley. I think that if you were around then, I might've fallen in love with you all over again."

I shook my head. "Stop, Stef. You're gone, don't make me wake up with more what if thoughts about us."

"So you have had them?"

"All of the time," I admitted. "You were my first epic love, Stefan. I could've danced with you in this speakeasy for eternity, if you hadn't befriended my Uncle."

"You know, you act like him sometimes," he said. "From here, I'm able to peak in on the living sometimes, and I've seen you be mad. I couldn't tell if being a badass was just something inheritable in that family of yours, or if you all just coped to your trauma the same way, but you are every ounce Mikaelson, the good and the bad."

"Right now, Stef, I want to be more bad than anything."

"I know," he said. "That's why they sent me here. Because you've been a ripper before, and you feel like you're slipping back, so who else to fix it than the Ripper of Monterey?"

I licked my lips, a nervous habit of mine, and I looked around. I didn't want to look him in the eye.

"It hurts," I whispered.

"I know," he repeated. "But Lilah, you aren't evil. You don't want to hurt people."

"I've done it before!" I tried to reason with him. Or maybe I was reasoning with myself.

"And you regretted it afterwards," he countered, walking towards me. He put his hands on my upper shoulders, holding my with a gentle but stern grip. "You hated yourself for it afterwards. And you vowed to yourself then that you would never get like that again. Don't you remember that?"

"I do," I whispered, but I grabbed his wrists and moved his hands from me. "But right now, I'm just too angry."

With that, I pushed him back with my vampire strength, sending him flying to the wall. He banged against it, crashing into tables on his way down.

He stood up, dusting himself off and straightening himself out. He looked at me with disappointed eyes, and sighed. "I guess we'll have to reason the hard way."